The stress is winning right now...

[timefliesby]

Hi,
I'm a mum to a 21 month old and a 3 1/2 year old. My ex partner moved me north with our two children just over a year ago for a business venture, 3 hrs from London where i had lived for 13 years. It meant moving away from my work contacts and meant I wouldn't be able to return to ex-employers when DD was older (we moved when she was six months old). We moved initially to a rental and then six months later into the house we had renovated together. I designed the kitchen and walked to the site every day with the kids strapped in the buggy to see progress and help with decisions. My ex had always had funny turns but it got worse once we moved. He refused to use his office saying it was cold and sat at the kitchen table all day with his back to me. He said nothing was mine because I didn't contribute financially. (I realised after we split up that I had contributed several thousand pounds to the everyday living costs through my freelance work.) He put the house in his name and we're not married because despite promising it, he never asked me. He said I didn't clean enough, that I wasn't his equal, that I didn't have aspirations etc. Our house was actually clean considering we have two toddlers, I found p/t freelance work, I designed the marketing collateral for his new business, I did the flyers for my son's preschool and I did the majority of the childcare for what were two very young children at the time.
Eventually, I decided I would just need to find more work as the money situation was being flung in my face regularly despite my ex being actually very well off. So I put DD in a creche for 3 hours and I did some quotes for a potential new client. When I told my ex, he went mental about me putting her in childcare for 3 hrs (she was 20 months old by this point and I paid for it) accused me of just drinking coffee and putting my feet up and cut a long story short, he threatened and intimidated me for two weeks telling me to leave until, with two upset children, I did just that. I fled to my mum's house two hours south. Four days after I left, with several bags still packed, he filed an emergency residency order saying I had "kidnapped the kids". I got 24 hrs notice of a court hearing. I had to find a solicitor in one afternoon and ended up with one an hour's drive from home. I got my mum to babysit and I spent an afternoon filling in forms to get it delayed. Two weeks later, we went to court and the judge threw the emergency application out (which would have meant the police would have come round to my mum's house and taken the kids back to their dad), and he put it to a contested residency hearing. A week before the hearing my ex supposedly agreed to an access agreement, but when we went to court, he said he'd changed his mind. As the courts thought it was all agreed, they'd only allocated 15 minutes. So then it was listed again for the 30th July. I have now submitted my witness statement. My ex, meanwhile is paying me £19 a week for two children and he is on Match.com as single with no kids.
I have no doubt that his custody battle is just about power and intimidation because he is now down in London every other week seeing friends and spending lots of money whilst I scrimp and save to feed our kids. So I think having two toddlers to look after would seriously cramp his style.
Work wise, I have now got a new client and we are just about holding it together, although I worry about money constantly and we can't move out of my mum's. The childcare to cover half my work in the holidays is going to be c£500 (the rest of my work I will do in the evening so as to actually earn something).
Everyone thinks I am okay, but I don't think I am? I feel numb and then I have these outbursts and I'm trying to be a good mum but my DS is 3 and he is really hard work and challenging in his behaviour with everything going on. And he says he wants his daddy sometimes (he sees him every other week for three nights). And just after he comes back from his he is really unsettled and tantrums a lot and doesn't look me in the eye and just seems to really not respect me. And I end up yelling at him and putting him on the naughty step all the time and I just don't think I'm doing it right. I love him so much and I feel like a bad mum. I've ordered "Raising Boys" and something else. But it's all getting too much. I'm worried about court, about my son, about money about being on my own. I can't share anything with my ex for fear of it being used against me in court. So I can't say, "you know his pre-school teachers said he was badly behaved today and I don't know what to do"...And then I have nights like tonight, where I can't stop crying and honestly, the odd suicidal thought crosses my mind but I can't do that because of the kids can I?
I don't know how my life became such a car crash and I know I'm lucky, my kids are beautiful, no one died, I don't live in Sierra Leone, I'm in my 30's and I should just get on with it, but I am really, really struggling right now and I just don't know what to do. Thanks.

[RedHelenB]

Could you not increase your hours to work 16 a week & then be able to qualify with childcare costs? That would free up your evenings perhaps.

[timefliesby]

Hello, sorry to hear you're going through it too. It's so horrible. We have an interim access order and he's just picked the kids up. I know he came from his new woman's house because there was a parking permit in his window. We only left in April. I find the pick up devastating as it is but boy today has killed me. And today I just wanted us to be back together as a family and yet he's been a total shit to me. Do you ever feel like that? I recognise that this is so unhealthy and probably something to do with being mentally abused for years. x

[outofthequandry]

I'm not sure what to say to help, but I am in a very similar situation. I think if it was just half of the problems we have it would be cope-able with, but worries about the family courts (major worry!), children's behaviour and not being able to discuss this because of fears it may be used against us, trying to work and set up on our own, and worries about the future and finances... it is all just too much. Today I have been having a similar day to you. Your ex sounds very similar in his behaviour and put-downs to mine. Of course now he is playing the perfect father and is fighting tooth and nail for 50;50 shared residence (which bears no resemblance to the arrangements when we were together). It is the knowledge that it is all about his continued desire for power and control, rather than what is best for the children that makes the court issues so unbearable. Someone told me to think long-term and not to lose sight of what you know deep down is best for the children even when you are being pressurised into doing what seems 'fair' (for the father). Like you I have to keep telling myself that I don't live in the middle of a civil war/no-one has died etc, which does seem to help! People have also told me that when children get older (mine are a similar age to yours) they do pick up on controlling behaviour, will know which parent has been consistent and provided boundaries for them, and will be less prone to the bribery/nasty games which may well be going on for the next few years. Good luck!

[daffydowndilly]

(((Big hugs)))

You will get through this. Go to your doctor and show them your post and see what they can do to support you, perhaps you need a low level of anti-depressants to get you through, or a bit of therapy just so you can chat to someone and get perspective. You sound so stressed and that support might help.

You are not a bad parent, you are aware that you could improve, and you will. I did a free parenting course with a free creche, called parenting puzzle, run by the local SureStart. Perhaps see if there is anything like that available where you are? If nothing else it was a nice escape and lots of coffee and biscuits. And you could meet other mums in the area you now live. Some may well be going through or have been through what you are.

Make sure you keep your support network up and don't isolate, and do nice things for yourself. Get some time off.

Let your lawyer for the hearing know about the match.com/no kids business. I am sure it can't help his case.

It is not your fault he treated you like crap. And repeat to yourself a million times. But you have the power to move on and make positive changes in your life, and you will hopefully look back at this time in a few years and see how you have come on leaps and bounds in your life. And you are allowed to feel sad now, you are grieving. Just don't bottle it up.

[timefliesby]

Thank you. I feel a bit better for just getting it all down on mumsnet to be honest! I hope you're right about a few years time. That's where I'd like to be. Just feel sad at the mo. Anyway, thanks.

[racingheart]

Poor you. It's a pig of a time when they're that small anyway, but to have to manage it alone is very hard indeed. Your ex sounds like a really nasty piece of work.

You have got out and you did the right thing. You are very brave. I'm glad you have your mum around. It won't be easy. No wonder you are stressed. You're allowed to be.

Set yourself up with plenty of support - Parentline or even the Samaritans, when you are this low.They are there to see people through exactly this sort of tough time in life. Because it is just a tough time. It will pass. It'll get better. You sound so intelligent and strong (even if you don't feel it). I'm sure you'll come through. You'll end up in a few years time with work you enjoy, children you are proud of and your life on your own terms without some jerk draining your energy and messing with your head.

Right now it's all raw and up in the air and you have too much on your plate. Just get through it day to day. Try to have a few laughs with the children each day and to end each night on a good note with them, if only so you have something you can pat yourself on the back for. (Won't always happen, but as a general habit it helps.) And look forward not back. Think about what you want to do once they go to school full time and you have your life partially back again.

I'm really sorry your partner turned out to be so selfish. Seems like it's a really common theme on MN at the moment.